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It is divided into a lower school of pre-kindergarten through eighth grade and an upper school of high schoolers. 98% of those who graduated from Sem successfully graduated college. 44% of teachers at the Lower School hold master's degrees. Its current president is H. Jeremey Packard, who recently announced he would retire by the end of the 2006-07 school year. HISTORY In September , 1844 , in the rural village of Kingston, Pennsylvania , 14 girls and 17 boys became the first Wyoming Seminary students. The new school was one of America's first co-educational Boarding Schools . Founded by Methodist leaders, but welcoming all denominations, Wyoming Seminary educated young men and women from Northeastern Pennsylvania and southern New York State . Following the Civil War , the school grew significantly, adding a commercial department to prepare students for employment in the region's mining, banking and manufacturing concerns. Its College Preparatory program readied young men and women for success at leading Colleges and the new comprehensive universities that emerged in the late 19th Century . In the 20th Century , improved travel brought more students from across the country and around the world, the campuses weathered two floods (in 1936 and 1972 ); and the borough of Kingston grew up around the school. A 1951 merger with the Wilkes-Barre Day School allowed Wyoming Seminary to establish a continuous program for students from pre-kindergarten through postgraduate levels with a new "lower school" serving pre-K through eighth-grade students in the neighboring borough of Forty Fort . Therefore the name of the Kingston school was expanded in order to include "Upper School", making it "Wyoming Seminary Upper School" and the Forty-Fort pre-K through 8th grade facility was named "Wyoming Seminary Lower School." Throughout its history, Wyoming Seminary has benefited from strong, committed leaders; in more than 150 years it has had only 10 presidents. Its current president, H. Jeremy Packard, took office in 1990 after serving as vice-principal of Choate Rosemary Hall in Connecticut and headmaster of Ridley College in Canada . It was an eloquent sermon delivered by the Reverend George Peck in the Forty Fort Meeting House that served as a catalyst for the establishment of Wyoming Seminary in 1844 . As a Methodist circuit preacher, Dr. Peck covered 136 miles by horseback every two weeks, traveling and preaching among his twelve churches. One day in 1839 , as he stopped to preach at the old church in Forty Fort, he fervently challenged local Methodists to establish a good school for the Wyoming Valley ’s secondary students. A competition ensued between the city of Wilkes-Barre and Kingston for the honor of serving as the site of the new school. Kingston, having raised $4,200 to Wilkes-Barre’s $3,400, won the honor and accepted it. Men wore high hats and the ladies wore hoop skirts and bonnets on a sunny day on September 25 , 1844 – the day Wyoming Seminary opened for its first term. Carriages and Hitching Posts marked an era of much slower motion and leisurely living. A white cupola capped the school’s sole building – a three-story red brick edifice at the intersection Market Street and Sprague Avenue (today, the main address is 201 North Sprauge Avenue.) The view from the dome was a bucolic scene of harvested fields, churches, and distant farmhouses and barns. At that time, only a small number of and New York . Many traveled long distances, which inspired first president Reuben Nelson and his faculty to work diligently to foster a family spirit in the small community – especially on behalf of the boarding students. Nelson proved to be quite a pivotal figure in the evolution of the school. At age 26, the Connecticut-farmer-turned-educator brought a buoyant enthusiasm to the task that lay ahead of him. He had risen above the loss of an arm at age 15 in a mill accident and the temporary loss of his voice as a circuit rider. He was once described as being admirably suited to pioneering, which may have bolstered him for the tough times that lay ahead. Over the course of his 27-year tenure he was to become intimately familiar with debt, fire, floods – even a tornado – but nonetheless tirelessly shepherded the school through its efforts to replace destroyed buildings and balance budgets. For these daunting tasks he was paid $333.32 during his first six months in office. Said one student, upon looking back on his years under the intrepid first principal of Wyoming Seminary: “It is not too much to say that I loved Reuben Nelson.” That sentiment may have been representative of many an admirer of Seminary’s first trailblazing president. Enrollment grew steadily at the small school . . . that is, until debt reared its ugly head. Nelson himself took to footing some of the small bills in the 1840s, and the Wyoming Conference Methodists helped. By 1850 the school devised plans to expand its facilities, and Swetland Hall was built the following spring. Thus began what was to become a gradual expansion of the campus over the next 15 decades. Fire struck in 1853, gutting both buildings but sparing students’ lives. Despite debt and natural disaster, Sem gained in influence during the 1850s and 1860s. Marking anniversary exercises in 1856, more than 5,000 people arrived at Kingston’s new railroad depot at the end of Market Street. The opening of a railroad line from Scranton to Bloomsburg marked a new era for the school, enabling Wyoming Seminary to attract students from throughout the region. The industrial age had arrived at the doorstep of the campus, and the railroad and steel industries needed the Valley’s anthracite coal. Kingston’s fields and forests became new streets bustling with shops, industries and homes. The curriculum broadened and evolved, and soon the school even found the resources to aid poor children with their educations. Despite the challenges of inflation, as well as the economic panic of 1857, Nelson navigated the school through difficult times. By 1862, wishing to return to preaching, he passed the reins to his successor, someone he called “the best teacher I have hired: Professor Young C. Smith.” Smith’s service to the school ended abruptly, however, in April of 1863 when he resigned, apparently discouraged by the school’s $6,000 debt and sagging enrollment due to the Civil War. The trustees again turned to the indomitable Reuben Nelson. Upon his return, Nelson faced a student enrollment of fewer than 100 students. He said he would resume his work on two conditions: that means be found to repair buildings and that a commercial department be opened. Both conditions were met. Hard times continued to plague Nelson. Upon his return, a tornado claimed the roof of one building. An arsonist was responsible for Ladies Hall burning to the ground. For the first time in its brief history, the school did not conduct classes that first semester in 1863-64. Tragedy doggedly followed Nelson again when he lost his only son to winter typhoid. Undeterred, the principal moved forward and was soon rewarded with a wave of donations from Trustees and others. By late 1864 all debts were reconciled. However, in 1865 fate once again intervened when a flood caused by a 10-foot-high ice jam – the first of many to wash over the campus. Undaunted, Nelson and the school prevailed, with the help of the Trustees and the community. In 1872 David Copeland succeeded Nelson as president of the school. Nelson, who had given the school 32 years of service, continued his fundraising efforts and served as a Trustee leader until his death in 1879. Although he fought illness much of his life, Copeland’s forte was his academic vision. He raised scholastic standards and broadened Sem’s program to include pre-theology study. He reorganized the administration as well. But, barely a year into his principalship, his plans were thwarted by the economic panic of 1873. Enrollment skidded from over 400 that year to 183 in 1877. Worries over this decline plagued the principal, who resigned for health reasons in 1882. Professor Levi L. Sprague, a man who had headed the young Commercial College for almost 15 years, succeeded him. Sprague was already familiar with Seminary, having entered the school in 1866 at the age of 21, hoping to study law. Instead, Reuben Nelson himself influenced the young man, winning him over to theology and the Wyoming Conference. Appointed principal at the age of 38, Sprague proceeded to lead the institution for a quarter of a century, becoming – in the estimation of many – the single most pivotal figure in Sem’s history. Noted for recognizing Seminary’s potential beyond the scope of an earlier blueprint, Sprague proceeded to promote athletics as well as academics. It was during his tenure that navy and white were adopted as school colors. The YMCA and YWCA established campus branches in 1889. In 1892 another milestone was reached when Sem participated in the first night football game in the United States. Although it was “called” at half time due to darkness, Seminary played Mansfield State Teachers College in a game that, oddly, lasted only a half – with no score – because the lighting was poor and the ground was reportedly “full of holes and covered with butternuts.” Sprague routinely toured anthracite-mining towns, searching for promising young men and women. He found them among the breaker boys and the young women employed in domestic service. Class rosters of the period show an ethnically diverse student body, reflecting an early 20th century wave of European immigrants who arrived in the Valley searching for employment as well as a good education for their children. A gifted fundraiser, Sprague focused on the one thing every independent school needs: an endowment. In 1913, the Trustees offered a $100,000 challenge gift if the Wyoming Conference of Methodists would match it. The Conference responded by raising over $200,000. In 1921, Mr. F. M. Kirby, responding to Sprague’s zeal and sense of mission, gave the school its single largest gift up to that date: one thousand shares of F.W. Woolworth Company common stock valued at $100,000. By 1935, when College Avenue was renamed Sprague Avenue, Sprague had placed a fledgling school on strong footing. Thanks to the assistance provided by the Kirbys – as well as the Pettebones, Dartes, Nesbitts, Bennetts and others – Seminary made great strides in the Sprague era, which ended with the death of the 96-year-old school leader in 1936. He had been associated with Seminary for 70 years. Another man who left his mark on the era was Professor Willis L. Dean, who directed the Business School for 49 years. The school prepared thousands of students for the region’s mining, banking and manufacturing concerns until its closing in 1969. Like Sprague, Professor Dean was described as a shrewd judge of the character and abilities of his students. An entry in the Wyoming College Journal, dated July 1885, states, “The large number of positions in bookkeeping afforded by the coal trade have drawn young men from all parts of the country to the coal regions.” Thus was recorded one aspect of a permanent shift from an agrarian economy to one that emphasized coal, transportation, and, soon, manufacturing. In 1925 the Wilkes-Barre Institute, a 51-year-old primary and secondary school enrolling 185 girls, moved from downtown Wilkes-Barre to a new building in suburban Forty Fort. This building, in 1951, was to later become Wyoming Seminary’s Lower School for primary and middle school grades. At a time when America was slowly recovering from the Depression’s breadlines and was just beginning to look beyond the darkened coal tunnels to the light of an industrial boom, Wilbur H. Fleck became Sem’s fifth president in 1936. He took office in the midst of the 1936 flood, which took a severe toll on the campus. Loyal alumni aided Fleck in the task of keeping an independent school full and afloat. Described by his colleagues as a real schoolman, Fleck, a Latin teacher at Sem since 1911 and a Dean since 1917, brought a highly academic tone to his tenure. He was the first for whom the title “President” was conferred, replacing the title of “Principal.” By 1944, when Wyoming Seminary observed its 100th anniversary, the President proudly noted such well-known graduates as General E. R. Quesada, who led tactical air support during the D-Day invasion of Normandy, Robert Johnson, James Johnson and Fred Kilmer, the founders of Johnson & Johnson, and Henry Hoyt, who had been the governor of Pennsylvania. Although he retired in 1950, noting that the $71,000 debt he inherited in 1936 was gone, Fleck served as a Trustee and continued to contribute to the school right up to his death in 1964. It was also during the fifties that Mrs. Dorothy Dickson Darte made the Payne Pettebone House in Wyoming a gift to the school, enabling Sem to transfer nursery-kindergarten pupils from the Day School in Forty Fort to a new home and to expand its enrollment. As American education changed, so too did aspects of the school’s mission. Sem’s next President, Ralph W. Decker, saw his main task during the fifties and sixties as that of elevating standards and thus cutting back a bit on enrollment. A nucleus of capable teachers remained. However, the inflation of the Korean War weighed heavily on the area economy. Business and music curricula began to suffer from declining enrollments. Still, Decker could proudly report in 1951 that the Wilkes-Barre Day School in Forty Fort, established in 1854, sought and gained a merger with Seminary. It became Wyoming Seminary Day School, resulting in an increase in Sem’s enrollment to 926. Thus, Sem became the region’s only independent school to offer a complete program from nursery school through secondary school. By the 1960s, Sem’s endowment steadily rose to several million dollars. The number of graduates climbed, the school’s influence grew, and the curriculum became more complex. Teachers received long overdue salary raises. One such teacher, Seminary professor Leroy Bugby, said of his pupils: “Students today have more motivation, more ability, more interests. And girls are rapidly winning roles in the stock market, banking and so forth.” Sem’s curriculum opened up to the Space Age and increasingly employed the seminar approach and electives, thanks to the influence of the school’s seventh president, Benjamin Hopkins Moses (1959-1966). A chaplain was appointed, implementing a two-year Bible studies program that replaced a more rigid four-year requirement. Music and Art Appreciation became requirements. It was not long before Sem became a pioneer in advanced placement courses in biology, calculus, chemistry, English, French, and modern European history. A Middle States evaluation in 1964 applauded the fact that 98 percent of Seminary graduates progressed to higher education from the college preparatory course. At the same time, the evaluating team urged Sem to improve its library collection, give students more self-determination, and nurture spiritual values better under a new chaplain. The team further urged the school’s leaders to renovate old buildings – especially Sprague Hall. It was Dr. Moses who initiated a relationship with “A Better Chance” (ABC) /Independent Schools Talent Search. This urban program provided “A Better Chance” for economically underprivileged but intellectually gifted students. In 1966 Dr. Moses’ term ended, and Harold C. Buckingham became the eighth president of Seminary. Described as a devoted alumnus and Trustee, Buckingham inherited a nominally balanced operating budget. He restructured the administrative staff, boosted competitive sports and urged the new literary societies of the 1960s to rally school spirit. Buckingham’s short tenure ended in 1967, when the Reverend Wallace F. Stettler, a Methodist preacher who showed a keen interest in youth, became Sem’s ninth president, presiding over a dozen buildings in the Upper School, the Day School (grades 1 through 8) in Forty Fort and the Payne-Pettebone Nursery and Kindergarten in Wyoming. Inaugurated in 1968, Dr. Stettler emphasized internal communications by interviewing every single Trustee and teacher. He established an “open door policy” for students, allowing them for the first time to be appointed to membership on faculty committees. Communication was further enhanced when he appointed the school’s first public relations director. A new director of development, Jack H. Meeks, surveyed community opinion and recommended plans to put Seminary in a stronger fiscal and plant position in the seventies. A 1969-70 Decade Development Program accomplished just that. Priority was given to increasing faculty salaries, property acquisition, and elimination of debt, major modernization, and new facilities. Once again, fate intervened in 1972, when the Agnes flood decimated the campus with more than five feet of water. Miraculously, school opened only a week late that September. Although books, desks, and other equipment were lost, the leadership of President Wallace F. Stettler saw the school through the crisis and made it emerge a stronger institution. From 1975 to 1980, the school focused on rebuilding, resulting in the new Pettebone-Dickson Student Center on Maple Avenue, as well as the Buckingham Performing Arts Center and the Stettler Learning Resource Center – both on Sprague Avenue. These new additions complemented the school’s 19th century buildings, which are listed on the National Register of Historic Places. Upon Dr. Stettler’s retirement, Dr. H. Jeremy Packard was named the tenth president of Wyoming Seminary, accepting the task of ushering Seminary through its sesquicentennial and into the 21st century. Dr. Packard came to Seminary with extensive experience in independent college preparatory schools in England, Canada, and the United States. One of his early priorities became the expansion of marketing and recruitment programs for both day and boarding students. He succeeded in increasing financial aid from a level of $900,000 in ‘90-’91 to its current level of $3.5 million. Today, 48 percent of Upper School students and 34 percent of Lower School students receive significant amounts of financial aid. Overall, 42 percent of Sem students are on some form of financial assistance. Dr. Packard improved faculty remuneration and benefits and made professional development a priority, enticing talented new faculty to the school as well as encouraging sabbaticals, exchanges and fellowships. Dr. Packard also actively sought opportunities for public-parochial-independent school cooperation. In keeping with the school’s Methodist origins and spirit of inclusiveness, he encouraged respect for all religions, ethnic groups and races, urging the Sem community “to be willing to look over our sheltering mountains to a world with which we are increasingly interdependent: economically, culturally, politically.” Realizing the importance of bringing the world to Sem’s doorstep, Dr. Packard also presided over the wiring of the Upper and Lower School campuses for new communications and computer networks. Other accomplishments in the year 2000 included the renovation of both the Fleck Dining Hall and the Lower School’s newly named, and completely renovated, Amato Auditorium. Recent acquisitions of property have allowed plans to proceed for the Kirby Athletic Campus adjacent to the Upper School. The old Kingston National Bank Building was acquired to provide the Upper School with the Great Hall, a large and architecturally impressive venue for both classrooms and musical performances. In 1994 the campus celebrated its 150th anniversary with a total enrollment of 745 students. The Sesquicentennial Wing at the Lower School, including the Sordoni Library and five new classrooms, was completed. During this same period, a Relational Statement between Wyoming Seminary and the Wyoming Annual Conference was incorporated in the revised by-laws of the Board of Trustees. It also provided for a new Trustee appointed by the national Board of Higher Education and Ministry of the United Methodist Church. Seminary continued its upper school requirement of a trimester of Bible study and twice-weekly chapel services. Also, the school reinstated the formal honor system in 1995. Gifts and pledges to Sem’s 1993-95 150th Anniversary Capital Campaign – the largest campaign in the school’s 150-year history – totaled $21,041,150, surpassing its goal by $6 million. In 1998 a new pre-kindergarten (age 3) program was developed at the Lower School. In 1999, a Sprague Hall addition was completed, adding additional space for offices, classrooms, and academic departments As Wyoming Seminary launched its 158th school year on August 28, 2001, enrollment reached near record levels, having increased by 200 students over the past 10 years. Ninety-eight percent of Sem graduating class entered colleges and universities. Students from 13 states and 23 foreign countries are represented in an increasingly diverse student body. Community service has its roots in the school’s 150-year United Methodist tradition – a tradition that can be interpreted freely in the independent school environment. Said Dr. Packard: “The student body is now so diversified in religious background – including at least a score of students who are Muslim, Buddhist or Shinto in their background – that we engage moral and ethical standards on a broad front.” As an extension of what students learn in their homes, Sem provides moral, spiritual, and ethical education. The religious program is a varied one and has strength in its diversity. In addition to courses offered in religious studies, Sem conducts all-school chapels, which provide a community identity, informal prayer groups, and outings for the development of spiritual awareness. The Upper School holds frequent chapels and assemblies for students to discuss issues important to young people. Likewise, at the Lower School, the Respect and Responsibility program builds the foundation for a lifetime of respect for self and others. Students at both schools are encouraged to be role models and mentors for the younger ones; focused school activities help to foster this mentorship. Seminary continues to enhance its choral, instrumental, dance and fine arts classes and clubs. Each summer the Performing Arts Institute attracts a record number of talented students from around the country to Sem’s campus. The Upper School boasts 19 varsity teams, while the Lower School fields 11 teams. In order to fulfill the goal of serving those who are less fortunate, teachers and advisors help students get involved in community service activities ranging from soup kitchens and nursing homes to assisted-living centers and organizations such as Habitat for Humanity. Students have also actively participated in fundraising for local United Way campaigns. As Wyoming Seminary celebrates over 160 years in exisistence and crosses the threshold to the 21st century, it continues to honor its long and valued affiliation with the United Methodist Church. It also strives to continue to honor the legacy of its early stalwart leaders and mentors who so loyally served the school during both prosperous and challenging times. In keeping with the traditions established by its founders, the school continues to be known for its small classes, close ties among faculty and students, a strong emphasis on the written and spoken word, and a spirit of inclusiveness. Its founding President, Reuben Nelson, would have undoubtedly approved of the durable institution that has changed with the times while honoring its rich and colorful past. EXTERNAL LINKS |
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